


Always Saying Goodbye

by LinneaLund



Category: The 100 (TV), The 100 Series - Kass Morgan
Genre: AU, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-18
Updated: 2015-09-18
Packaged: 2018-04-21 10:29:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4825649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LinneaLund/pseuds/LinneaLund
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As ambassador for the Skaikru, Bellamy is always leaving Mount Weather - and Clarke - behind. It never gets easier. </p>
<p>*Note: This snapshot takes place five years after the 100’s arrival, in an AU where the Mountain Men and the delinquents have negotiated peaceful coexistence, rather than war.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Always Saying Goodbye

Bellamy leans in, brushing a strand of blonde hair back from Clarke’s cheek, a smile touching the corner of his lips as he does.

“What?” she asks, surprised again that after so many years, the mere closeness of him, the soft pads of his fingers against her cheekbone and the faint smell of sandalwood are enough to make her knees shake.

“Nothing.”

“No really,” she says. “What?”

“Mmmph. It’s fine, Princess.” His chest quakes as he tries to stifle a bout of laughter and Clarke pokes him in the ribs.

“Tell me. Come on.”

“Fine,” he laughs as she elbows him a second time. “You’ve got paint on your nose.”

Clarke frowns and pulls away. A crimson blush rises in a wave up from the collar of her faded metal-band t-shirt – four youths who lived and died a century earlier – up her throat to suffuse her face.

“Hey, now,” he says. “Don’t be like that.”

For the first time (since the last time, Clarke’s mind prompts) Bellamy’s hand threads its way into the back of her hair and he tugs her gently toward him. His arms wrap her shoulders, pulling her into his space. She frowns at him for a moment. As ambassador of the Skaikru, Bellamy is always leaving her beind. It never gets easier and Clarke knows how she’ll be feeling tomorrow morning when he goes. She will be a wreck in tomorrow’s studio class. She doesn’t want to face twenty fresh-faced kids – the newest generation in Mount Weather and a mixture of Ark-born and Earth-born alike – feeling like that.

“Don’t be like what?” she grumbles.

“Like this,” he says, tugging at a lock of hair. “Angry.”

She looks away. “I’m not angry at you, Bellamy.”

His arms tighten. “Kiss me and prove it.”

“Don’t,” she warns. “You’re leaving again tomorrow, and I don’t-“

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t think I can pretend to be happy when we’re always saying goodbye and...”

The last bit disappears unspoken, because after all these years together, after a war fought and won, after peace treaties, and enemies now friends, she isn’t sure what she means by that lament. Clarke’s ghosts have been quiet for a long, long time, but things have never been easy where Bellamy is concerned. Not when she's the one left behind.

“Someone’s got to keep the trade lines open with Camp Jaha or the Grounders will-”

She interrupts before he finishes. “Why does it have to be you?”

“You know why,” he sighs. “It has to be someone the Trikru trust.”

“I know. I just wish it wasn’t always up to you.”

“Me too, Princess.” Bellamy’s eyes are soft. He doesn’t let go of her. His hand slowly slides down to rest on the small of her back, holding her still.

Clarke knows it’ll start a fight, but she can’t stop herself. “Why can’t you ask someone else to take your place?” she grumbles. It’s an argument they’ve had more times than either can count. “Why not ask the council to find another ambassador?”

This time he doesn’t argue. He smiles and looks away.

Seconds pass.

“What?” she asks.

“What do you mean, what?” 

“That look. You're smiling. What does it mean?”

Bellamy shakes his head. “Don’t know what you’re talking about, Princess,” he says, biting back another smile.

“You’re not telling me something,” she says – terror and elation mixing inside her. “What…?”

Bellamy cups her chin. “I didn’t want to say anything until it was official, but it looks like I’ll be taking over security at Mount Weather next month.”

“Oh,” she says softly, something rising inside her like a bubble. Her legs feel like they are compensating for the uneasy vertigo of artificial gravity she once knew on the Ark. _Hope_ , her mind offers, before it goes completely quiet.

Bellamy is grinning and she knows, quite certainly, that this is the sign she’s been waiting for. The thing that would change everything else. They can be together now.

“So?” he says. “What do you think?”

“That’s- that’s good,” she croaks.

His arms tighten and he leans down, capturing her mouth with his own. With a sigh, Clarke lets the final bit of doubt that she’s been clinging to for so long let go, wrapping her fingers into Bellamy’s shirt, holding him tight. The kiss drags on and she realizes that for the first time, everything feels different. There is no reason “not to”, no reason not to think of the future. That, in its own way, is completely terrifying. The kiss grows deeper, one of Bellamy’s hands winding back into her hair, the other sliding up under her shirt, starting the slow burn that she knows with be raging in a few minutes.

For a second his lips leave hers and he leans in to the side of her face.

“No more goodbyes, Clarke,” he whispers. “Just us. Together.”

With that, the last of Clarke’s fears disappear. They’ve been on the surface for five long years, but today is the first day Earth feels like home.


End file.
